It wasn’t the television studios, or the boss’s office the size of an Olympic swimming pool. It wasn’t the auditorium for 200 people, or the ten-storey-high purpose-built building with a two-storey atrium. It wasn’t the overseas offices in Oman and Beijing, the staff of 400, the oak-panelled corridors, or the oil paintings lining the walls numerous enough to set up an art gallery. It wasn’t the $300 million endowment, or the ability to raise $2.3 million from a single fundraising dinner (with tables going for $75,000 a time). It wasn’t the fact that my meeting with one institute’s president was delayed because a real president — of Panama — had dropped by, squeezed in between a former president of Indonesia and the supreme allied commander of NATO.

No, what really brought home to me the gaping difference between American and British think tanks last week was bumping into David Frum, George Bush’s former speechwriter, in the lift of the American Enterprise Institute, in whose waitress-service canteen I had just dined sitting next to Paul Wolfowitz, the former head of the World Bank. Other think-tank colleagues there include John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the enormously courageous Somali-born apostate and former Dutch politician. In Britain, top policy thinkers choose to work in universities; in the US they choose to work in think tanks. ‘Think tanks are more important than universities now,’ Frum told me, without a hint of immodesty. Even though I lead Policy Exchange, Britain’s (and arguably Europe’s) largest centre-right think tank, I wouldn’t dare to claim we are more important than a university.

In a whirlwind tour of US think tanks last week, I tried to find the reasons — beyond the US’s obvious size and wealth — for the differences between their think tanks and ours. American think tanks, such as the Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute or Cato, are major institutions that bestride the political and media scene whether the political weather is favourable or not. And those are just a few of the Washington ones — there are dozens more where they come from, plus a plethora of smaller think tanks in pretty much all the state capitals. An annual two-day convention for think-tank leaders (last held in Atlanta a few weeks ago) attracts over 700 people. The plush personal offices of US think-tank presidents ooze power and prestige as much as the offices of leading politicians.

British think tanks, by contrast, generally eke out a subsistence existence in pokey offices, living hand to mouth, never quite sure not just what the future holds, but where the next pound is coming from. Rather than being permanent institutions, they are generally very ephemeral, prisoners of political fashion, enjoying 15 minutes of fame before sliding into irrelevance and obscurity, kept going by the warming memories of glories past. On the right, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute, which did such a remarkable job saving Britain from its 1970s self, have all seen busier times. The Blairite Institute for Public Policy Research is beset by rumours of its decline now that its patron is no longer in Number 10; the once über-hip Cool Britannia-creating Demos just announced that it won’t be doing any events at the party conferences this autumn because it is too costly. Only our venerable empire-era foreign policy think tanks — the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the Royal United Services Institute and the International Institute for Strategic Studies — have broken out of the cycle, ploughing a relatively lucrative furrow advising governments.

America has a more advanced culture of philanthropy than the UK (like the main think tanks in the UK, those in Washington are generally charities relying on personal donations). But in the US there is a breed of ‘policy philanthropists’ who give vast amounts of money to promote ideas, believing that changing the nation’s ideas and policies has a bigger impact than funding a community project. Indeed, the creedal nation, united by a belief in freedom rather than by ethnicity, seems to have a great belief in the power of ideas to shape the future, reflected in their astonishingly vigorous factual literature.

It isn’t just major American donors who believe in ideas. The Heritage Foundation (patron: Baroness Thatcher), the largest conservative think tank, has a staggering 335,000 individual donors, many of which give under a $100 a year, and has a target of 1 million — one in 300 Americans. It attracts support by campaigning vigorously for conservative values and policies, as well as coming up with new conservative ideas. The American political system, with its greater checks and balances, is also more open to lobbying — for ideas or special interests — than Britain’s elective dictatorship.

Like much of the US non-profit sector, the Washington think tanks are extremely professional compared to their British cousins. They can afford to buy in the best in the business, having teams of professional fundraisers running astonishingly slick direct-mail campaigns and putting on gala dinners across that continental nation, eliciting support through an irresistible barrage of newsletters, pamphlets and advertisements.

Their more professional business models have given US think tanks extraordinary financial security. The Heritage has an income of $60 million, nearly 20 times as much as the largest centre-right British one (Policy Exchange). All the main US think tanks have major endowments (the AEI has $60 million, the Brookings $300 million), meaning they can more effectively plan ahead. The libertarian Cato Institute has already built its own building, while the AEI (‘a university without students’) is planning to do so.

The big question, of course, is whether any of this matters. It does if you believe that policy making is too important to be left to government-paid policy makers. And also if you are right of centre. Political parties, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with their opponents, and necessarily obsessed with day-to-day headlines, are generally incapable of long-term serious thought. Universities are pretty much monopolised by the Left, and seem to rejoice in their lack of real-world impact. A whole raft of lobby groups from Liberty to Refugee Action to the Child Poverty Action Group get endless free BBC airtime promoting pretty uniformly left-wing viewpoints.

A new generation of centre-right think tanks, such as Policy Exchange, the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Centre for Social Justice, are currently thriving with the political momentum in our direction. But to stay relevant and vibrant, conservative thinking needs to be sustained throughout the political cycle: the case for conservatism needs to be made strongest when conservatism is least fashionable.

In the US, the flourishing centre-right think tanks have helped push the whole political centre of gravity way to the right of that of the UK. The AEI is (in)famous for promoting the invasion of Iraq, while Heritage has kept social conservatism and the importance of religion high on the policy agenda. Cato has helped mute the siren calls of protectionism.

Those on the right of centre in Britain often complain that the Left has been far better at promoting its ideas, while commentators often complain about the shallow state of debate in Britain. But with such a weakened ideas industry, it’s no surprise that our ideas aren’t thriving. It would be far healthier for democracy and debate in Britain if our ideas industry managed to step up to the American level.
Anthony Browne Is Director Of Policy Exchange.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated May 17, 2008

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Martin

Unfortunately in Britain the political system is to the left of that in the US.All the private Universities, which means to a great extent the good ones or the Ivy League ones, have a massive war chest of funding. Many in the tens of Billions.This s because of a process called Democracy which allows Americans to give their money to whomsoever they want. The Government does not attempt to penalize them through premium taxation since they have been brought up in a spirit of Democracy and, above all else, understand that for Democracy to be healthy there has to be argument and discussion.In the UK the mainly state funded Universities have been taken over by left thinking academics. It really is a wasteland of Islington and Hampstead dogma.This suits the left and most Universities have shied away from going private. Either scared or intellectually incapable of thinking of it.This is compounded by a tax system which penalizes many potential philanthropists, of whom we have far fewer for our size, because of a dislike of Industry, Commerce and entrepreneurialism.Once you have slipped the ties of Democracy and moved left it is hard to reverse the trend. Ask the Iron Curtain countries.

TDK

We live in a society where the idea that many institutions can survive on charitable donations has died. It is beyond most people’s comprehension that education or health might once have been so funded. Indeed the debate today is whether or not to have state funded political parties.

An inevitable result is that the state funded institutions end up reflecting the prevailing orthodoxies of the day rather than a wide range of views. Nasty (or so called nasty) people are selectively excluded.

Observer

As I say to the people who work for me, don’t just come to me with a problem, give me a solution. It might not work, or it might need adapting but its at least better than coming along with no ideas on how to solve the problem.

In this case we don’t seem to have a suggested solution or even a start on one. As someone outside the think tanks I would say pool your resources to get best use of limited funds. Fine, each think tank has its own emphasis but couldn’t you share buildings and admin staff to cut costs. Do you try common marketing initiatives (i.e. two or more think tanks combine to do a joint mailshot to prospective supporters)? Why don’t the chief execs of the think tanks meet and work out ways to work together to raise their collective profile.

After all, all it needs is a little thought, and that is what they do isn’t it?

Kevin Aylward

If Anthony enjoys the company of people such as Wolfowitz and John Bolton, he properly belongs in the American Enterprise Institute. Let’s keep them there, out of harm’s way. Meanwhile, in the real world, we have work to do.

Helena, Florida

As all articles written with a foregone conclusion in mind, it does not give the whole picture of the political landscape in the USA for sure. Yes, there are lots of think-tanks. Yes, they are filled with wonderful offices, furniture and rich rewards for those who are part of them. Yes, they are filled with ex-politicians, lobbyists, people with axes to grind, one way system subscribers of political think, either Right or Left. Lobbying in general is quite an obscene spectacle and fact in the USA, where money does not only speak, it commands. This article missed the point entirely. What is needed is a Forum where both the Right and the Left come to the Centre, to genuinely work on issues that can be resolved not in favour of one group or another only, but to advance progress for all.

jon livesey

The truth is that political ideas are fairly simple to convey, and they certainly don’t need think tanks with multi-million Dollar foundations to convey them.

Britain’s real problem is not that it lacks new ways to convey ideas but that the old ways are so inadequate.

The print media are a joke, printing only what is sensational or has a human interest angle. You will read a hundred stories about patients given the wrong drug for every one sensible article about how a health delivery system can be managed efficiently, and read a hundred editorials confidently proclaiming that “Britain doesn’t make anything” for every single story conveying the actual state of British manufacturing.

The punters want their tribal political bigotry, and the main-stream media are far too eager to pander to them. It’s how they make money, not by informing, but by confirming prejudice, often at the cost of the truth.

What Britain lacks is not fancy think-tanks with TV studios, but an education system that gives its future citizens a foundation in Government and practical economics. Instead we have an education system that encourages the voters of the future to think about politics in empty slogans, in environmentalist, anti-capitalist and anti-commerce terms, and which fails to endow them with the simple logical skills that would allow them to parse and analyse political claims and statements, and which leaves them with no alternative to dealing with politics in terms of supporting this ‘team’ or that, as if it were a game of Soccer.

To British expatriates like myself, one of the most stunning realisations about living abroad is that there are countries where the average Joe can tell you where his Government gets their money and what they spend it on, and who don’t see politics through the tiny prism of Peterloo and Satanic Mills.

Russe[[

At once a scientific wasteland, where novelists are hailed as environmental gurus, and the font of anti-realism in foreign policy epicenter , AEI epitomizes the intellectual implosion of Washington DC. There was once an interlude in Anglo-American relations where its example might have in conscience been recommended to a British government, but with our victory at Yorktown, that time has past

ClodiaFelix

I couldn’t agree more with this. Right wing thinking in Europe has no access to public debate, and our political culture is the weaker for it. Many universities, are in my opinion, no go areas, they are so loony left.

Even Hollywood is the poorer for being all lefty. Old Hollywood was brilliant, a real clash of ideas. John Wayne and Kirk Douglas on the same set. Clash of the Titans, and you came out with plenty to think about. That’s interesting.

I watched Clooney’s McCarthy film recently. It was significantly weakened by the absence of McCarthy’s view point. There’s lots to say on the subject, especially as we now know that some of these people WERE spies. Let’s examine that and see where it takes us.

K.Vijayakumar

American Think Tanks provide an intellectual veneer to the ideology they want to promote. Thinkers in the American Universities have no such agenda. Theirs is an intellectual pursuit of ideas with a view to weigh and value these. If in the process leftist concepts pass muster. they cannot be faulted.

Harry, Wellington

Personally, I’m holding on to my money until a centre-centre think tank emerges.

Peter C Glover

As a British conservative freelance writer forced to write mostly in the US (and even Canada) to get material published, the same can be said of the British MSM, too.

Having read your excellent book The Retreat of Reason I could not agree more with your perspective on think debate and tanks, however. If my wife would let me, I’d be gone to the ‘land of the free’ in an instant, such is the grip the liberal left has on the British public square. Free press? I don’t think so – try writing some sense to rectify the media’s hype of global warming hysteria.

I am already in touch with US conservative think-tanks – and we could indeed do with a US-style think-tank (not the ones we current have).

If one was set up here I would be the first to make suggestions on policy and media. In the UK, currently, the slide from real conservatism into ‘conservative liberalism’ – thanks to Mr Cameron – appears inexorable however. God help us that we should dump PC and have some genuine straight-talking.

Ian C

There’s alot of good thoughts here, both in the article and the comments.

A major component of the problem (a left dominated ‘public square’) is less the lack of think tanks, though it is part, it is more that the centre/right intelligentsia would be utterly frustrated in a career or environment that is so dominated by the state as is the case if one works eternally in the British universities. Free thinking people tend not to work in such environments.

Ultimately we need to change our political system away from the no-longer respected parliament and elected executive dictatorship that can reign as long as it can get elected. It needs to become a more codified form of government with very specific things it is there to do instead of being a home for idealists who can rule the roost eternally by creating the sort of vested interests that State run education and public services has done over 50 years. If, example, the USA had had a NHS, would they have the intellectual free-thinking and diversity of opinions and practices that they have in medicine? Almost certainly not. The same applies to education and welfare services.

Think-tanks are not an answer to this although their work is extremely valuable – good suggestions about combining for duplicated resource needs. The answer is we need to change the role and remit of government. Think-tanks can help.

Hambledon

You’ll regret that wish if it comes true. US “think tanks” produce nothing but banalities. Has David Frum ever written a memorable speech for George W. Bush? No. All of Bush’s speeches are dull as ditchwater and full of platitudes. You should read George Packer’s article on the decline of conservatism in the current issue of the New Yorker.

Stephen Myles St. George

If you think U.K. universities are Leftist, just wait and tally-ho see the universities in the U.S. Harvard received disgracefully forced out president Lawrence Summers simply because he suggested that men might be “more inclined” towards science than females and that a greater variance in male IQ might lead to more geniuses.

And just for that, the faculty at Harvard forced him out, all those bloody crusading Communist liberals, rejecting science for their inane stupidity. This despite overwhelming support among the student body.

dan PIRO (future MP)

“The American political system, with its greater checks and balances, is also more open to lobbying — for ideas or special interests — than Britain’s elective dictatorship”

You mean that the american political system is far more open to corruption than ours. thank god our systemis and never will be like theres.

lobby groups like liberty to refugee group and that child poverty action group dont get that much airtime at all ! and their not petty left-wing viewpoints – they’re moral viewpoints. by describing those moral groups as left-wing you’re saying left = moral.which true btw – the left is morally superior to the right, except on issues like abortion.

“Those on the right of centre in Britain often complain that the Left has been far better at promoting its ideas”

what are you on about ? the right have always been better at promoting their ideas becasue they get the money behind them. the left dont do a good job in promoting their ideas, they’re often just moral conclusions to different issues.

“The AEI is (in)famous for promoting the invasion of Iraq”.

surely this statement damages your arguement for a more american style system.

“It would be far healthier for democracy and debate in Britain if our ideas industry managed to step up to the American level. “

we have a far healthier democracy than america. having an americanised system would be stepping DOWN to a worse version of politics.

dan PIRO

Ian C :”If, example, the USA had had a NHS, would they have the intellectual free-thinking and diversity of opinions and practices that they have in medicine? Almost certainly not. The same applies to education and welfare services”

Go watch the film sicko.how is the american version of healthcare better than ours. theres 50million americans without health insurance. those who pay the extortionate sums demanded for health insurance are denied treatment etc. it sounds awful .

In my opinion the welfare state (to give ppl a good quality of life), the army (for national security) and banks (for financial security with taxpayers acting as shareholders) should be nationalised.

Dave B

The quote below is from The Independent:

“US think-tanks exist to thrash out policies that match that institution’s guiding principles. Without US-level endowments, ours often rely on single commissions from interested parties, including the Government, and so operate more like consultancies.”